Army AI-Enabled “Gateway” Technologies Integrate Data From Incompatible Formats

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

Army AI – Gateway

It is often said that an AI-system is only as effective as its database, and seemingly limitless amounts of data can only be useful if it is organized, analyzed, accessed to the extent as needed, scaled as necessary and quickly filtered to identify or isolate information of greatest relevance. 

AI can now do this in milliseconds, and hours or even days of drone video ISR data can be analyzed and filtered to pinpoint moments of greatest relevance for commanders making fast-paced combat decisions. What happens when incoming pools of information to be analyzed arrive through different transport layer technologies? For instance, perhaps some critical data arrives by satellite through GPS, other information through an RF signal or data link and a third through some kind of optical or wireless communications technology? How can these disparate technological formats be pooled, organized, integrated and analyzed in relation to one another. 

This is where crucial “gateways” arrive as they are filters or translators essentially able to integrate otherwise incompatible technical data formats. 

“With data coming in from multiple sources in multiple formats, the quick win is to have translators to take that data and translate it to another format that is useable for whatever application you are operating in,” William Nelson, Deputy, Army Futures Command, recently told Warrior in an interview. 

The Army is taking measures to fully empower and network the future force through a dispersed, integrated series of “meshed” nodes, multi-domain force and series of “gateway” technologies designed to connect different transport layer formats to one another.